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A slight furrow appeared between her eyebrows at my response, her gaze shifting from one of my eyes to the other, but instead of asking any of the questions burning in them, she simply nodded, then smiled when my mother came toward us.

“Alicia,” Mom cooed, brushing air kisses to both her cheeks before pulling her into a hug. “I’m delighted to have you here, darling. Let me show you around and introduce you to some of my friends.” Mom grinned at me over Alicia’s shoulder. “You don’t mind if I steal her for a while, do you, honey?”

“Does it matter?” I asked, knowing full well it didn’t, but since we’d agreed to present a united front, I probably had to pretend to care at least a little bit. “Only if you promise to take care of her.”

“Of course.” Mom immediately took her arm and led her away, her head already bending toward Alicia’s and her free hand waving animatedly as she spoke.

Since I had zero interest in actually mingling with these people, I grabbed a drink and stuck to the edge of the drawing room, grateful Mom had chosen Alicia to parade around instead of me. I would’ve felt sorry for her, but as the evening progressed, Alicia seemed to take an actual, genuine interest in Mom.

Mom might’ve practically hijacked her, but she was absolutely doting on her now, and Alicia couldn’t seem to get enough. Watching them together even cracked some of the ice around my heart, but not because it was my wife and my mother. There was more to it than that.

After our first dinner together, I knew Alicia’s parents were dead, but she’d made it sound like it had happened so long ago that she’d learned to live with it. Now, however, I found myself wondering if there was a deeper, more painful layer of grief she was hiding.

She attached herself to Nora’s hip, listening intently to my mother’s endless, gossipy anecdotes, and on more than one occasion, when Mom reached out to pat her arm or rest a hand against her shoulder, Alicia didn’t pull away. Instead, she leaned into my mother’s touch, her expression softening in a way that looked a hell of lot like hunger for a mother’s affection.

“This is going remarkably well, isn’t it?” A heavy hand landed on my shoulder, drawing my gaze away from them.

I looked over to find Alex standing beside me, a glass of bourbon in his hand as he stared across the room toward the fireplace where Jane had joined Mom and Alicia. I shrugged, blinking a few times as I tried to snap out of my musings about my wife’s true emotional state.

“Yeah, it’s fine, I guess,” I said.

At that moment, Mom reached out with a gentle, maternal smile on her lips and lovingly tucked a stray lock of blonde hair behind Alicia’s ear. Alicia beamed back at her, her entire face lighting up.

“Its fine?” He laughed. “It’s better than fine. This was a great match, even if I have to say so myself. Just admit it, Holden. I did well.”

I blew out a heavy breath, that brief flicker of warmth in my chest freezing over once more. After all the cynical conditioning I’d endured during my upbringing, I was too broken and too thoroughly burned by the snakes I’d grown up with to believe a stranger could be this naturally kind.

People didn’t just love my mother. They loved what my mother could buy them. What her name or her backing could mean for them.

As the thought hit, I narrowed my eyes at Alicia, who was laughing at something Jane must’ve said. She’s just sucking up to the family. She knows who holds the purse strings and she’s trying to make sure they both like her so the money she has access to now doesn’t run out.

I took a long sip of my drink, trying to convince myself of that because the alternative, the idea that my wife was actually sweet, fragile, and utterly deprived of a family’s love, was a reality I absolutely was not prepared to handle.

CHAPTER 16

ALICIA

Istood by the front door, double-checking that I had my set of library keys when I heard the rhythmic thud of footsteps descending the stairs. Holden rounded the corner into the foyer a moment later, dressed in a dark charcoal sweater that made his broad shoulders look even broader, a clean pair of jeans, and his heavy backpack slung carelessly over one shoulder.

Tasha sat perched on a stool at the kitchen island, wrapped in her fuzzy bathrobe and nursing a giant mug of coffee as she scrolled through social media. As soon as he appeared, however, she abandoned her idle scrolling to look at us over the rim of her mug, her eyes darting between him and me like she was about to watch a potential train wreck occur on her favorite reality dating show.

Holden didn’t pay any attention to her, not even to say good morning when he walked straight past her into the kitchen. He set his laptop case and backpack down on the island and turned those piercing gray-blue eyes directly on me.

“Where are you going?” he asked.

“I have work. My time off is officially over and I like to get there early to set up. Especially on Tuesday mornings. They’re always a bit of a circus because we have the infant and parent reading hour at nine, then toddler story time immediately after that. If I don’t get the foam mats and giant stuffed bears arranged before the doors open, it’s chaos.”

I had no idea why I’d told him all of that. I could’ve just left it at having to go to work, but for some inexplicable reason, whenever he questioned my movements, I felt like I was being cross-examined by a particularly attractive, but disbelieving prosecutor. It just felt like I had to defend myself.

Especially with Tasha curiously observing our exchange, probably judging the heck out of me despite knowing exactly why I’d chosen to subject myself to this for the rest of my life. Or maybe it wasn’t her who was judging me. Maybe I was judging myself, but it sure felt like there was a great deal of judgment doing the rounds.

Meanwhile, Holden seemed completely immune to the atmosphere stifling the entire house right now. He just leveled me with a flat, serious look and slid a glass bottle of water from the fridge into the slot on the side of his backpack.

“Okay, then,” he said. “I’ll go with you.”

I blinked hard, my hand freezing on the doorknob and my extremities suddenly refusing to cooperate. “I’m sorry, what?”

“I have midterms coming up next week,” he explained, swiping the heavy-looking backpack right back up like it weighed nothing and slinging it over his shoulder. “I need to log some serious study hours, and frankly, the city library is a perfect place to do it. Plus, if I stay here, Tasha will spend the entire morning harassing me either for my notes or about my family.”